


the archer, the prey

by crownsandbirds



Series: so, darling, play your violin (it's what you live for) [4]
Category: Given (Manga)
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, Jealousy, M/M, Possessive Behavior, i have no idea how to tag this, its just, thats it thats the fic, ugetsu being petty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-31 12:50:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20115379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownsandbirds/pseuds/crownsandbirds
Summary: "Ugetsu takes a breath, and Akihiko braces himself.'Well. I can see what you all were trying to do," he says, his hands grabbing at his ankles in a near-sweet manner, the complete opposite of his crystal-cutting words, "but that's really not what it's supposed to sound like.'"Ugetsu likes staking claim over his things.alternatively, Ugetsu crashes the band's rehearsal.





	the archer, the prey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ikvros](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikvros/gifts).

The bite throbs painfully on the side column of his neck. 

Akihiko is as used to Ugetsu's mean little fangs as he's used to making coffee each morning, as used to biting as he is to kissing. He's used to feeling the sharp hardness of familiar canines pressing and digging into his skin, carving in and pulling and forcing him through a growing surge of ache until - sudden piercing pain, a hiss slips past his lips, and then it's a constant uncomfortable throbbing on the same rhythm as his frantic heartbeat. Normally, he'll be busy with trying not to react in any visible way while Ugetsu licks at the wound he himself created, a predator pleased with the establishment of his possession over the prey he captured. In the beginning, the early sticky-sweet honeymoon days, back when being with Ugetsu felt like he was on the verge of death because his lungs seemed incapable of breathing in enough air, his heart seemed too weak to beat fast enough, his very hands clumsy and desperate in their haste to hold and pull and _ keep close and never let go _, Akihiko kept count of the bites and bruises. One just behind his ear, one close to his jaw, one down his neck, one between his shoulder blades. They were proofs of Ugetsu's existence, of his touch and his presence next to Akihiko. 

It's been at least three years now. Akihiko lost count at some point in the middle of the second year. The two of them have established a white-knuckled grip of possession on each other's life in other, subtler ways. Ugetsu was the one who picked the place where Akihiko got his second piercing. Akihiko was the one who decided on the color of the chairs in the kitchen. Domesticity and its ownership structure. Sometimes it feels like a contract neither of them is allowed to read. Sometimes it feels like Akihiko has ripped off the bone marrow from his vertebrae and handed it to Ugetsu. Like Ugetsu keeps his baby teeth inside a velvet box, or something. 

Akihiko doesn't keep count of the bites anymore, because at some point they became part of the weird little codependent routine they've created together. 

But some are just particularly noticeable. He checks the mark using the frontal camera of his phone; it's a bad angle, he has to tilt his head to the side like he’s exposing his neck for a predator to attack him and subdue him, but he thinks he can see little drops of blood rising up in the indentations left behind by Ugetsu on his skin. 

"This looks nasty, you know," he says, pressing his fingers against it and hissing with the pain. 

Ugetsu kicks the air idly. He's sitting on top of the kitchen counter and in a dangerously good mood, and Akihiko has been wary since they woke up this morning. "You don't usually mind," he points out, his black-hole eyes lidded and the corner of his lips curved upward just enough to look sharp. "As a matter of fact, I don't recall you making any complaints last night."

Akihiko feels his ears burning with self-consciousness. He clears his throat. "Yeah, but it's impossible to hide. People are gonna ask."

Ugetsu's eyes shine in a way that tells Akihiko that’s exactly what he wanted in the first place. "Just tell them it was your boyfriend."

"You're not my boyfriend," Akihiko mumbles, head down as he ties his shoes. 

Silence. Ugetsu's feet have stopped kicking the air. 

Akihiko immediately regrets his words, regrets having allowed Ugetsu to leave a mark quite so high on his neck, regrets the way the truth hurts them both so deeply. 

He shifts uncomfortably as he gets up to grab the keys to his motorcycle. "_ You _ broke up with me, remember?"

Ugetsu hops off the counter, reaches to grab his tasteful, expensive jacket from where he threw it on the back of the couch the night before. His fingers tighten around the collar as a psychosomatic reaction of the intense frustration Akihiko is sure he must be feeling right now. “Sure. Silly me, huh?” 

Akihiko clears his throat as a way to cut through the diamond-sharp displeasure that's emanating off Ugetsu in waves. "I have rehearsal tonight, so if you don't wanna wait for me to make dinner, there's some yakisoba left in the fridge."

Ugetsu slams the door closed with his foot as he leaves. 

-

"Kaji-san, what the _ fuck _ is that?" Uenoyama asks as soon as he steps inside the studio. 

"_ Language _, Uecchi," Haruki berates idly, but his gaze is also zeroed on the same place as Uenoyama's. 

Akihiko's hand instinctively flies to cover the mark on his neck. He can feel his cheeks burning with embarrassment. "It's nothing."

Mafuyu spares them a glance with the same foggy, hazy look glazing over his pretty eyes as he reserves for nearly everything in his life other than his boyfriend and music. "I didn't know Kaji-san had such a passionate lover," he comments absently as he tunes his guitar. 

Uenoyama chokes. 

Akihiko clears his throat. "I _ don't _. Let's just do this, okay?"

-

About half an hour into practice, Akihiko hears the single knock and sees the door handle turning and he knows exactly what’s happening. 

He knows Ugetsu always knocks once with the back of his knuckles before pushing a door open, but it still takes him a fair second to fully comprehend the imagery of his housemate standing in the entrance of the small studio.

“What are you doing here?" he asks, quite eloquently.

“I called you! _ And _ texted you.”

Akihiko is sure he did - when Ugetsu is angry, he can't ever be angry quietly. He points at where his phone lies on top of his bag, away from his seated place behind the drums. “I’m at rehearsal. You _ know _ this.”

Ugetsu shrugs as if he doesn’t care either way, which is par for the course when it comes to him. “Well, I need a ride home.”

“What’s wrong with your car?”

“It’s been making that weird noise since last week. _ You _ know this.”

Akihiko sighs deeply. He has known Ugetsu and his whims for the better part of three years, now - he can do this useless back-and-forth for the rest of the night if he gets the chance. “Okay," he caves, dragging a hand across his face. "Fine. We’re still not done yet, though, so you’ll have to wait.”

The corner of Ugetsu’s graceful lips quirks upwards in a sharp slash of amusement, and suddenly Akihiko knows what’s happening. “Sure," he drawls out, and then he turns, and his face shifts into a beautiful expression of uncertainty that Akihiko doesn't buy for a single second. "If it’s okay with everyone…?”

_ Bitch, _Akihiko thinks. The bite on his neck throbs painfully like an afterthought of Ugetsu’s mark of ownership. 

Haruki and Mafuyu both look at Uenoyama, who shrugs and fidgets with his guitar. "Fine by me. If he doesn't bother."

Akihiko doesn't know how to explain to Uenoyama that you don't just _ shrug off _ a person like Ugetsu. 

"I mean, sure, but -" Haruki takes a tentative step forward and Akihiko has the sudden urge of pulling him back to keep him at a safe distance from Ugetsu's quite extensive range of possible collateral damage. "But - who are you again?"

"Well," Akihiko starts, cracks his neck, braces himself for what's to come. "Mafuyu knows him already, but - everyone, this is Murata Ugetsu. He's my -"

Ugetsu throws a dangerously sharp smile at him. "Your…?" he purrs. 

Haruki is staring between the two of them as if he's just found a dead body in the street. Terrified, disturbed, a discreet glint in his painfully honest eyes attesting to his frightened interest in the subject at hand. 

Akihiko grits his teeth. _ Damn classifications. Damn Ugetsu. _

He presses his tongue piercing against the roof of his mouth, feels the cold metal. Remembers when he decided to get it, around a year ago, lying down on the bed, lips parted open - Ugetsu put his index finger inside his mouth, his nail tracing the depression across his tongue until he pushed down on the soft skin, said, _ imagine if you had a piercing here. _

_ Would you like that? _ Akihiko asked after Ugetsu removed the finger from his mouth and started to idly trace the sharp angle of his jaw. 

Ugetsu smiled, that one smile that could get Akihiko to murder a man for him and kiss him with his fingers still tainted with blood. _ I’d love it _. 

Akihiko fucked - a lot of people, after that, more people than he cares to count or particularly wants to remember, and so many of those breathlessly commented on their appreciation of his tongue piercing. Akihiko had to stop himself from saying, _ it’s not for you. It’s not even for myself. It’s for Ugetsu. _

Everything is for Ugetsu, and what isn’t he’ll find a way of stealing for himself. Hence, the rehearsal-crashing. 

In the end, Akihiko settles for, "My housemate."

“Murata Ugetsu?” Akihiko can hear Haruki's sharp intake of breath. "The violin genius?"

Ugetsu laughs his windchimes chuckle. "I wouldn't go that far," he says, waving the praise off with a regal movement of his hand. "I'm just a music major, same as Aki. Pleased to meet you all."

Akihiko has to grit his teeth to stop himself from pointing out that fake modesty trickles down as poison from Ugetsu's lips in much the same fashion as his bone-deep arrogance does - but he guesses he'll allow him to build his charming little mask for today. "Ugetsu," he goes back to introducing, "these are -"

"Nakayama Haruki, Uenoyama Ritsuka, and dear Satou Mafuyu. I'm aware."

Everyone turns to look at him with astounded looks on their faces, including Akihiko. Haruki in particular looks as if there's a gun being pointed to the soft space between his eyebrows, as if Ugetsu knowing his name establishes him as even more of a threat than he was before. 

Ugetsu is smiling wide enough for it to be unsettling. His sharp canines are visible between his pretty lips. "I'm good with names."

Akihiko is very done with this, and even more done of having to pretend he's not noticing the way Haruki is staring at them, with the most heartbroken expression on his face. Unlike his ex-boyfriend, he doesn't get off on being a fucking sadist. "Ugetsu."

"Yes, Aki?"

Akihiko points to the empty spot next to his bag. "Sit down over there and shut up."

"Yes, sir," he purrs. "Don't let me get in the way of your -" he waves his hand with the beautiful disdain that's so characteristic of him, "practice."

He sits down with all the grace of a ballerina, folds his legs, and carefully takes his violin case from where it's strapped across his shoulder to rest it in his lap. He leans back against the wall, crosses his arms and watches. 

-

Akihiko remembers one day where Ugetsu showed him a picture of him as a child. 

Ugetsu was a beautiful child - all the cuteness soft in his cheeks from when he was a boy melted into gorgeously sharp features when he became a man. His eyes were the same, big and black and all-encompassing. In the picture Akihiko was given - and that he kept in his wallet for the longest time, like a pining idiot - Ugetsu couldn't be older than 6 years old. He was small, tiny and frail for his age, and was standing prim and proper in a perfect little suit next to his diplomat father. His father stares on directly at the camera with a terribly serious look on his face; Ugetsu, on the other hand, has his head tilted just a bit to the side, as if something outside his line of sight has partially captured his attention - but his eyes pierce through the picture with a sort of calculating coldness that no child should have. 

Akihiko remembers feeling stripped down to his bare-bones with those black eyes staring at him. 

It's the same feeling he gets now as he lowers down his drumsticks and his gaze instinctively slides over to Ugetsu sitting on the floor. He doesn't want to ask, but he knows his expression is painfully clear: _ what did you think? _

Ugetsu takes a breath, and Akihiko braces himself.

"Well. I can see what you all were trying to do," he says, his hands grabbing at his ankles in a near-sweet manner, the complete opposite of his crystal-cutting words, "but that's really not what it's supposed to sound like."

Akihiko can _ hear _ the moment Uenoyama's ego falls to the ground and shatters in a million pieces. 

Haruki chokes, completely taken by surprise by the devastating rudeness. "Ex_cuse_ _me -_"

Ugetsu appears to be having the most fun he's had in ages. He squares his shoulders, lifts his chin, and Akihiko knows what's coming now. 

"Mafuyu," he starts off, near cooing the name, "we've talked about this, but you really shouldn't be trying to reach notes you simply don't have the skill to reach yet. It just sounds sloppy. Aki, I've _ told _ you this before, but you _ really _ need to learn how to sync better with your bassist if you want the rhythm of this band to sound decent. I know this can be a bit hard with how fragile the bass is, but you and Haruki-san will just have to find a way to work this out. Uenoyama-kun, you do have some talent and I know what you're trying to achieve here, but arrogance only sustains itself if it has structure, and honestly, from the second chord progression onwards your playing just got messy. I know the feeling of wanting to show off, but you really need to pay more attention to the song and less on how cool you want to sound.”

Uenoyama appears to have been stunned into silence by the long string of musically precise insults, which Akihiko guesses is a first for him. Mafuyu is just fidgeting with his guitar, in that nervous, distressed way he does when he's put in an uncomfortable spotlight. Haruki has his fingers wrapped so tight around the handle of his bass that Akihiko fears he's going to break it in half. 

Ugetsu gently places his violin to the side and gets up with a lovely little sigh. "Here," he reaches for Uenoyama's guitar. "Let me."

Uenoyama visibly loses his grip on reality for a moment. "You know how to play?"

Ugetsu looks at him as if he's a particularly daft type of stupid jellyfish. "It's like the violin, but easier. Of course I do."

Akihiko shuts his eyes tight. _ Jesus, Ugetsu. _

Uenoyama brings his guitar close to his body in a near-protective manner. Ugetsu rolls his eyes, extends his hand. "C'mon, I'm not going to break it."

Akihiko hisses between his teeth. "Give it to him, Ue, let's just get this over with."

Ugetsu takes Uenoyama's Fender with the certain grip of someone who clearly knows what they're doing. He squares his shoulders, straightens his back, lifts his chin - a series of movements Akihiko has watched him do countless times before, the way he takes the center of a stage and commands attention, his whole body shifting smoothly and melting around whatever instrument he's holding, as if his entire being was born to do this. 

And he starts playing. 

He's playing and singing at the same time, making up lyrics as he goes, his foot marking the rhythm against the polished floor with all the perfection of a well-tuned metronome. And Akihiko _ understands _ what he meant now, can see what their song was supposed to sound like - can hear how Ugetsu is polishing off the rough edges, his gorgeously clear voice reaching places Mafuyu's can't, his dexterous fingers flying over the chords in an entrancing delicacy of movement. The song sounds better now, more structured, even without the bass or the drums to give it more depth of rhythm, and the manner in which it was taken and shifted into something far more delightful and intense within such little time is a testament to just how fierce a hold Ugetsu keeps around his music sensibility.

For all of his disdain towards the guitar, he looks like he's having fun, like he's getting immersed in the music the same as he always does, be it an original song from a virtually unknown band or Tchaikovsky's most famous concerto; and Akihiko can see the way Mafuyu is leaning forward, the way Uenoyama's pissed-off frown is melting in his face into something of a begrudging appreciation, and then into sheer amazement that always comes when faced with definite genius. 

Haruki, in turn, is staring at Akihiko, but Akihiko is too busy licking his lips while staring at Ugetsu. His tongue piercing catches at the corner of his mouth. 

Ugetsu is always beautiful, his features fine and pleasing to the eye, but when he's playing he's the most extraordinary thing Akihiko has ever seen in his life. 

When he's done, he throws his head back and flips his hair away from his eyes. His expression is bright with the satisfaction of a job well done. 

"Like this," he says. 

Akihiko falls in love again. 

-

"Wait, if you don't have your car, who dropped you off here?"

"Nijimura did. After the lecture."

"Your viola boyfriend?"

"He's _ not _ my boyfriend."

"If he was giving you a ride already, why didn't you ask him to drop you off at home?"

Ugetsu's smile turns into the glint of a knife's edge and Akihiko doesn’t even know why he asked in the first place. 

"Can we stop at that cafe place? The one where you took me last week? I've been dying for their chocolate cake," he deflects with the same careless elegance he uses for everything in his life, his gaze sliding over to Haruki for a split second before shifting back.

Akihiko hates that he knows exactly where this is going, hates that his heart is beating faster at the prospect of getting to spend time with Ugetsu either way. "Sure," he says. "Whatever you want."

Ugetsu's mouth says, "Thank you". 

His smile and his lidded eyes say, _ I know. _

He sits atop of the bike, steadies it with his feet as Ugetsu gets on as well - and he doesn't turn to look, but he can feel how Ugetsu spreads his legs wider than they need to go, feels the way he slides his hands up Akihiko's back and down his torso, resting dangerously close to his crotch. 

"We can go," he says before idly pressing a bite between Akihiko's shoulder blades and putting on the spare helmet. 

Akihiko doesn't have it in him to disobey. He stares onwards, presses his foot to the gas, and doesn't see the way Ugetsu smiles at Haruki before they set off. 

**Author's Note:**

> as a fun fact: the childhood picture akihiko gets reminded of is basically a detailed description of one of my own childhood pictures with my father. because projecting is living.


End file.
